In today's distributed computing environments, security is of the utmost importance. Due to the rise of wide-area public networks, users have unlimited access to content, e.g. data, files, applications, programs, etc., from a variety of sources. Additionally, the users' connection to the public networks provides a window for malicious entities to attack the users' computing systems. Malicious entities utilize this ease of accessibility and anonymity to attack the users. For example, the malicious entities can plant viruses, Trojans, or other malicious agents in publicly available content in order to attack the users' computing systems and steal sensitive information from the users and can attack the users' system remotely across the public networks.
To identify security risks in computing systems and networks, users and administrators employ vulnerability assessment and security assessment tools. These tools can identify vulnerabilities in computing systems and networks but only provide discrete information about the vulnerabilities (i.e. that a vulnerability exists). Accordingly, the tools do not provide any assessment of the vulnerabilities within the context of the overall network security.